


Greater Wars

by Marz_A



Series: Pro Patria Mori [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Suicide Squad (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Arkham Asylum's A+ Mental Health Care, Gen, Mild Dissociation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 04:20:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4165602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marz_A/pseuds/Marz_A
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Yeah,” Harley said, just out of reach from his cell, “We’re teammates now. We’s got to have each other’s backs. Like Batsy and Bird Boy.”</i> Wink.</p><p><i>He could kill her for that. He </i>would have <i>killed her for that. Except he was in a cell, and she wasn’t. Except he had a bomb in his back ready to explode if he didn’t play nice. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Greater Wars

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning: This version of Jason is darker than a lot of fan portrayals. He's closer to villain than anti-hero, but this is just the start of this story and he's got a long way to go. Also, he swears a lot. 
> 
> **Trigger Warning:** blood/gore, depression, PTSD, suicidal thoughts, mild dissociation, ableist slurs, imprisonment/isolation, abandonment, really terrible mental health care (really, really terrible). If you see a trigger that's not listed here, please PM me or comment and I'll add it.
> 
> The title is a reference to the Wilfred Owen poem "The Next War."

He could feel it. When he leaned a certain way, or lay on his back. **_The bomb._**

 

It didn’t hurt, not really, just a dull pressure in his back, but even when he couldn’t feel it, he knew it was there. Ready to explode, at any moment. In some ways, the thought of it was freeing, knowing with just the push of a button… _**BOOM!**_

 

And that scared him.

 

He’d been certain, so certain, that he could use this opportunity to escape. And he still could. Play the long game, gain Waller’s trust, kill some bad guys along the way. It wouldn’t be easy. One wrong twitch, and it was over. Like that time he fooled the motion sensors on the Batmobile by moving so slowly it took him hours just to cross two feet. Every breath timed, every blink controlled. He could do it; he was certain.

 

But there couldn’t be any doubt, any hesitation, and the thought of ending it all right here, right now, in this cold, gray cell… if he was being honest with himself, didn’t seem so bad.

 

Tick, tick, boom.

 

_The padded cell was old and dirty, filled with faded blood stains the orderlies had not been able to completely bleach out. Jason wondered whose blood it was. Was it the doctor whose throat Joker slashed on his way out? Or was it the Joker's himself? It wasn’t a secret Joker had taken to bashing his own head against the wall when he was bored._

 

_Jason’s cell was next to Victor Fries’. He could tell by the way the cold just seeped from next door. They tried to insulate it as best they could, but as long as Jason wasn’t literally freezing to death they didn’t care. He lay awake at what he thought was night curled under his pathetically thin blanket._

 

_They kept the lights on all the time so Jason could only count the days by the pills they gave him. The first three weeks he counted the days diligently, waiting for the right moment to make his move and escape. Then he had a bad day, a really bad day, and they loaded him up with so much meds by the time his head was clear again it could have been a few hours or a few days. **He'd** come, during that time, Jason thought. He’d woken up briefly, head still too cloudy to think, and saw a shadow standing over him._

_It was probably just a dream or a hallucination or some shit. He’d never come before or after._

_The doctors changed his pills after that, and Jason stopped bothering to count the days. What did it matter, when every day was the same?_

 

_**“Hahahahahahahahaha!!!”** _

 

His heart ran cold as the echoes of giggles and snorts bounded around his cell.

 

“ _ **Harley,**_ ” he snarled, jumping to press his face against the bars.

 

A woman with blond hair and dyed tips was doubled over, clutching her abdomen as she struggled for breath. She looked up, icy blue eyes meeting his, a manic grin on her face. “Hiya, Hoodie! Didya hear? _The penguin was an eggplant!_ ” She snorted again.

 

“It wasn’t _that_ funny, dear.” A woman in an orange catsuit crossed her arms. Vixen. She had a slight smile on her face aimed at Harley, although her eyes never left Jason.

 

“What _the fuck_ is she doing here?” Harley Quinn was a fucking psychopath who needed to be put down, same as her “boyfriend.” Short of that, she should be rotting in Arkham. Instead she’s here, palin’ around with a _Justice Leaguer_ , not even locked up like him.

 

“Serving my country, same as you.”

 

He turned to Vixen. “Please tell me this is just another one of her delusions.”

 

Harley stuck her tongue out at him as Vixen shook her head. “Welcome to Task Force X.”

 

“She’s _**insane!**_ ”

 

“Last I checked, there’s still a padded cell in Arkham with _your_ name on it.” Jason’s death-grip on the bars only tightened. His knuckles were sheet white, his jaw locked shut. He wanted to _scream_. But he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Vixen’s posture was loose, would seem relaxed to almost anyone, but Jason could see the way she angled herself between the inmates, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. She eyed him warily, but there was something else. Not just caution, but...pity.

 

Jason snorted derisively. He didn’t need her pity.

 

“Waller has her own reasons for recruiting us, and we all have our own reasons for coming here. No matter what those reasons are, the truth is we’re here because **we deserve to be.** ” Dark locks fell in her face as she looked down in shame. “The people here, they’re criminals. Supervillains. Can’t control their most base instincts, or don’t care to. Most of ‘em couldn’t be trusted to hold your umbrella on a rainy day, but they’re your team now.”

 

“Yeah,” Harley said, just out of reach from his cell, “We’re teammates now. We’s got to have each other’s backs. Like Batsy and Bird Boy.” _Wink_.

 

He could kill her for that. He _would have_ killed her for that. Except he was in a cell, and she wasn’t. Except he had a fucking bomb in his back ready to explode if he didn’t play nice.

 

“ _Enough_ , Harley. Let’s go.” Vixen pulled the other woman by her elbow towards the exit.

 

Harley waved at him on her way out. “See ya later, Hoodie!”

 

He stared up at the camera, always watching. “I want to see Waller. **Now.** ”

 

 

_Click, click, click. His mag was empty._

_He didn’t need to reload. They were all dead._

_Jason screamed as he threw the AK against the wall. Terrible gun safety,_ _but what did it matter anyway. The only person he could hurt was himself._

_Fuck them. Fuck all of them. They deserved it. Drug dealing pieces of shit._

_He wiped blood from his forehead. Not his. One of theirs. Maybe Bobo’s or Chi Chi’s. They were standing closest to him. A pool of blood formed in the middle of the warehouse around where they were all congregated. From just the right angle, Jason could see the reflection of the half-moon. There was no other light. A stray bullet had taken out the power._

_He should get out of here. The cops would be there any second. He needed--he needed--_

_He didn’t know what he needed._

 

_He needed to think._

_Jason pulled over a nearby chair and sat, staring at the dead eyes of his former lieutenants and their bodyguards. He counted twelve dead by his hand, in less than a minute. He’d never even heard their screams over the pitter-patter of the machine gun. Some had made it out, he knew. Tyler for sure, he had just barely walked into the door when he saw Jason pull out the gun._

_There was no noise now. Like animals who disappear during a storm, the clamor of the Gotham night died to a halt. There were no horns honking, no graveyard shift chatter, or drunken mumblings. The pigeons had flown away and Jason was left alone in bitter silence._

_A familiar silhouette flashed in front of him. Jason smirked. Of course. “Hey, B. Long time no see.”_

_“Jason. **What did you do?** ” He could hear the disappointment in his voice, with just a hint of anger. After so many years, Jason supposed Bruce just didn’t care enough to be angry anymore. Not that he’d cared before._

_“Saved the government some money feeding prisoners.”_

_And here it comes. The judgement. No matter how much time passed, Bruce could always find it in him to judge. Bruce Wayne: the great arbiter of all that is right and good. Probably had that engraved on a plaque in his office somewhere. “They were your own people-”_

_“ **They were scum!** ” He stood up, knocking the folding chair down as he did so. The clang of the metal hitting the floor echoed throughout the open warehouse, as if to mock him in its emptiness. Shadows and dead things were all that was left. Good. “Liars and dealers and killers. They didn’t **deserve** to live. All the people they hurt, whose lives they’ve ruined, they deserved vengeance!”_

_“The people they hurt, because **you** told them to.”_

_He still didn’t get it. He never got it. “You can’t stop crime, you can only control it! I **had** to let them do their thing so they’d leave the innocents alone.”_

_“But now you kill them for it.” Jason just wanted him to stop. Stop talking, stop looking at him, just stop. This is all his fault anyway. He could have stopped all of this, if he’d just killed Joker, if he’d just cared about him enough to avenge him. “Do you even hear yourself? You **know** this is wrong.”_

_Bruce reached for him. Jason moved to grab his arm and toss him to the ground so he could make a run for it, but Bruce was too fast. Jason was on his knees with his arm locked in Bruce’s grip. If he so much as twitched wrong, the Dark Knight would dislocate his shoulder._

_The hard floor was wet with the blood of his former comrades. The red, sticky substance soaked through his jeans as he knelt there. The screeching sound of sirens approached, lights red and blue flashing through the window. “There’s nowhere to run, Jason. Your people are dead. The cops have this place surrounded. Please, I don’t want to hurt you.”_

_“Too late for that, old man.” Jason ripped himself free, dislocating his shoulder in the process. Pain clouded his vision but he ignored it. Ignored everything but the living shadow in front of him. He pulled the knife out of his boot and slashed at his former mentor._

_Jason’s feet were swept out from under him and he hit the ground with a thud, just barely falling the way Bruce taught him to not get hurt. He hissed as his shoulder protested the action. Jason looked up from the ground at the figure towering over him, bathed in red and blue florescent lights, the sirens blasting from just outside._

_He knew then that it was over. There was no getting out of this. Not this time. He had no plan, no back-up. Just a dozen dead bodies and an empty mag. His rage faded away until hatred and resignation were all that was left. “So you lock me up in prison like all the rest? What difference will it make? I’ll just get out, start all over the way they all do. Every time. You know I’m right. You’re just too much of a coward to do what needs to be done.”_

_Jason wished he could see his mentor’s face behind the cowl, but his stoic posture was all the emotion Batman ever showed. “I’m not going to kill you,” he said finally._

_“Just leave me to rot.”_

_Silence was the only response Jason received as the cuffs tightened around his wrists._

_“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”_

 

 

“ _ **Waller** **!**_ ”

  

Jason banged on his cell, screaming her name. _Harley Quinn? Harley Fucking Quinn?_ Waller had to know this was destined to blow up in her face! Okay, really, any plan that involved supervillains doing your dirty work was bound to blow up your face, but _still_.  

 

The only response he’d gotten was his own echo.

 

Jason shivered as a chill ran up his spine. Was it supposed to be this cold in here?

 

He stared up at the black dome concealing the camera. She was watching, he knew it. Watching his torment with those dead eyes and spiteful grin. This was all just a game to her, wasn’t it?

 

“ _ **Waller!**_ You can’t trust her!”

 

 _Clang, clang, clang!_ His arms ached from banging against the bars, but he couldn’t stop, not when his every instinct was shouting to stop this. To stop _her_. **Fuck** , why was it so fucking cold in here?

 

“You can quit your hollering. Waller’s not coming.” Jason breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe Waller didn’t care, but at least someone was paying attention. In Arkham, he could scream for days and no one would so much as knock on the door to say they were listening.

 

He turned to face a muscular man with a crew cut and a Colonel’s rank walked into view. Gotta be Rick Flag.

 

Jason crossed his arms.  “I need to speak with her.”

 

“Yeah? So do the President, the Defense Secretary and Captain Atom. You really think you’re more important than them? Wait, don’t answer that. Of course you do.” Cold blue eyes stared back at him.

 

“Well, I _am_ more charming than them.” Jason flashed a smile at the unamused Colonel.

 

“The Wall doesn’t do charm.” Dressed in full field uniform, the Colonel sported a fresh bandage on his right shoulder, and he was favoring his left leg. He must have just come back from a mission, and by the looks of it, it didn’t go too well. The last thing he probably wanted to deal with right now was a wise-ass punk straight out of Arkham. _Well, too fucking bad._

 

“Harley Quinn sure charmed her enough to get here.”

 

The Colonel remained unimpressed. “You’re not seeing her. But I do have a message from her: ‘Suck it up or go back to Arkham.’”

 

Jason stayed very still as he glared at the Colonel. “You honestly think having her on the Squad is a good idea?”

 

The Colonel leaned in real close to Jason’s cell. “Let me tell you something: You’re here because you can shoot things real good and nobody gives a shit if you die. You’re here because for some goddamn reason Waller thinks you’re useful. Throw another _**temper tantrum**_ and that usefulness goes away real fast. If you want to stay here, you’re going to have a new mantra: _Suck it up or go back to Arkham._ ”

  
As Flag turned to leave, Jason called after him, “You didn’t actually answer my question.” After a glare from the good Colonel, he added in the most mocking tone he could muster, “ _Sir_.”

 

Jason scoffed as the door clicked behind the Colonel. So he was one of _those_. Star-spangled yes-man brainwashed into believing even the most horrific crimes were okay if they’re committed in the name of some vague concept that looks pretty on a poster. DUTY. HONOR. LOYALTY.

 

Harley’s _loyal_ to guy who kills kids for kicks. Is that supposed to be _endearing_? No wonder they put Flag in charge of the government’s personal black ops team. Guy can justify anything.

 

Who _should_ Jason be loyal to? The family that betrayed him? The drug dealers who were just waiting for him to die or a better offer to come along? He wasn’t loyal to anyone ‘cause he never met anyone who deserved it.

 

And now he was _here_ with _them_.

 

 _Suck it up or go back to Arkham._ If he did go back, he could escape from there. Wouldn’t be easy, Bruce literally designed the cell to hold him, but he knew the weak points. If he didn’t let himself get drugged up again, he could bust out.

 

Knives twisted in his chest at the thought of going back there. To that room where the bloodstains never quite faded away and no one cared if you screamed. His heart raced and his breath caught at the thought. **_No._ ** He couldn’t go back there.

 

But could he stay here? Suck it up, play the long game, win Waller’s trust so he could escape, and kill some bad guys along the way. That was the plan wasn’t it?

 

_Kill some bad guys along the way._

 

**Harley Quinn was a bad guy.**

 

Waller thinks she's in control, but it's obvious she's just been lucky. She's too full of herself to see that the real bomb wasn't the one in Jason's spine, and she's not the one holding the detonator.

 

Tick, tick, boom.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading! I love feedback, comments are much appreciated!
> 
> The next installment is going to be considerably longer than this, and I've decided to write it for Camp NaNoWriMo in July with a goal of 30,000 words. Allowing myself time to edit, you can expect it to be posted mid-August, although if I'm not too exhausted I might post another short scene in this 'verse before then. 
> 
> For the interested, a synopsis of the next installment can be found [here.](http://campnanowrimo.org/campers/marz-ebony/novels/without-hereafter/)


End file.
